Heroes and Villains

Jerry Bumpus

Heroes and Villains is a collection of nine short stories from the shadows cast by such legendary figures as Patty Hearst, Richard Nixon, and Charles Manson, and from the denser obscurity of simpler folks. Some of the stories are comic, some almost as sinister as their subjects.

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Jerry Bumpus has an eye for freaks …His place is American space, mainly the Southwest and Midwest: highways, motels, diners, used car lots, golf courses, cabins in the woods. There he unleashes his monsters, watching them settle the territory.

The New Republic

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Novelist Vance Bourjaily has called Jerry Bumpus the ‘king of underground writers.’ His tightly written, precise, and surrealist stories are definitely not for the squeamish, but the effect is overwhelming.